The One Of Us To Survive
by Here Though You've Forgotten
Summary: It wasnt Mark.


**Disclaimer: obviously, I don't own RENT. RENT and all its characters are the property of the late Jonathan Larson.**

****

They said it was Mark. They joked about it, kidding him good-naturedly. But usually, they were serious. He was, and they knew it. They planned for it, all of them did. It was always, "hey Mark, "When I'm gone, please forget that" Or, "Mark, that's how I want to be remembered, always."

Mark knew it too. He always knew that it was he. No one was ever sure, but I suspect it's the reason he filmed so much. He wanted to remember them, and he knew they were dying. I think he honestly believed that if he captured enough of them on film, they would never die. Maybe he was right; maybe if he showed his films to the world, if Today For You became a blockbuster, maybe they would never die. They would become immortalized in the souls of people. Maybe Mark was right. Oh well, it doesn't matter now anyway.

I could see how hard it was on him. He always knew it, and it made him uncomfortable. Well duh! Of course it would. No one wants to think about his friends dying. It's not exactly something to talk about at parties, but they did. Roger and Mimi, Collins more than anyone, they had adjusted, they knew what was coming and they accepted it. All they wanted was to live each moment as their last. They weren't afraid to die. They wanted love, to die surrounded by it. That was all. Oh and remembrance. They wanted Mark to remember them.

Mark was never like that. He could never accept that his friends were dying. He tried to ignore the signs, the coughing, the weakness, and live life normally. That in and of itself was probably his greatest gift to them. When Mimi stumbled while dancing, he pretended not to notice, He grumbled about lazy roommates when Roger grew too weak to lift his guitar. Collins, well it was different with him. Collins never lost his optimism even at the very end. He was never sick for a long time, no struggle. He was ready to go. He just showed up at the loft one morning and declared that he had come to the end of the road. Collins died that evening, with all the bohemians around him.

Collins' death threw Mark into shock. Mark had been lying to himself for so long, refusing to believe that the end was near. I think he honestly convinced himself it would never end. We would all move back into the loft, Benny would leave Alison and come back to us. No day but Today Right? Twenty years from now we would still be here, dancing on tables, living La vie Boheme.

When Collins died, all that changed. When Collins died, Mark had to stop pretending. He withdrew more, hid behind his camera, afraid to interact with his friends, afraid he would miss something. They never understood what was wrong with him, he could never tell them. They had accepted their fates. All of them were at peace with their futures, or lack of them, Who was Mark to take that from them? If he told them his problems, they would be sad again, they would remember him; remember that they were leaving him. They were running out of time, he didn't want them to spend their precious days worrying about him. He would be fine.

But he wasn't. Roger and Mimi died within the same day. No one told Roger that Mimi, his precious Meems had died, but he knew anyway. It wasn't disease that killed him, but love. He couldn't life without Mimi. He hung on for three hours, to bid farewell to his best friend, then he went. That was the end of the bohemians. As much as he was "the one", Mark wasn't strong enough. When Mimi and Roger died, that cold Christmas eve, Mark went with them.

Oh he survived, but you couldn't really call his pitiful existence _living_. I took care of him for the next few years, reminded him when he forgot to eat, remembered with him, and cried with him. Mark wandered around in the loft, talking to himself, berating himself for letting them down, but to move on was too painful. "That's poetic, that's pathetic" He would say, when I tried to help him realize he had a right to grieve. He quit working for Buzzline, had no reason to. Actually, I can scarcely remember him leaving the loft unless he ran out of food. He sat on their table, and watched his film reels go by, old ones. Mark stopped filming when they died. They were his inspiration, what could ever match them? Maureen tried to help, but commitment was never her forte. Last I heard, she was up in L.A., acting in movies. Then one day, Mark left, took his camera and left. I never saw him again. He had made such a break through that morning. He left the loft, went the life with me, and then he left to film, something I never thought he would do again. I thought he was going to pull through after all, but it wasn't to be.

Mark was hit by a truck while riding his bike. Looking through a lens gives you terrible peripheral vision, and Mark wasn't being careful. I identified him, buried him, and now here I sit crying for Mark. Mark was really and truly the last of the bohemians. Oh me? I was never one of them. I hung out with them, I befriended them, but there wasn't the shared history, the deep connection of the desperate and dying. I cried with them, laughed with them, but I didn't shiver with them when they had no heat. When there was no food, I bought it for them, I didn't starve with them. And in the end, I didn't die with them.

Years after he said them, Benny's words had come true. Bohemia is dead. It's sad when I think about it; they were so sure it was Mark. I mean, who else could it be? Maureen took off, and goodness knows she was too flaky to be the one. No one thought for an instant she'd stick around when they were gone. That left Benny and Me. Benny was a traitor, as Maureen called him in one of her protests, " A little bulldog who once had principles, but abandoned them to live as a lapdog to a wealthy daughter of the revolution" Obviously it wasn't Benny. None of them really thought it was me either, I was never one of them. I was never a bohemian. I'm a lawyer, whose best friends were bohemians, but I wasn't one of them. They never thought it was me.

They were wrong. It wasn't Mark. After all this time, four years since Collins died, three since Roger and Mimi, Mark died two days ago. In the end, it was me. They didn't think it would be me, probly didn't think I would stick around, but I did. No one thought it would be Joanne, but it is. I'm the one of us to survive. I will carry their memories to the world; I will try to make them immortal, with Mark's films, Roger's songs, and my own writings. I had three years, the world never knew them. The bohemians have died. Died, but not left. As long as I remember, they will be here with me. "Remember the love, measure your life in love." They lived and died by that. So I will, the others are gone but I am still here. I will remember the love. Please, take a lesson from my friends. Live like there's no day but today, because for them, there wasn't.

AN: My first non Newsies fic! R&R please! I could really use some feedback!


End file.
